Quick, what does URL stand for? Uniform Resource Locator or, for most of us, a web address.
We all think of web addresses as names, descriptions and words like www.mygreatwebsite.com but really, each domain name resolves to an IP address that is a bunch of unique numbers.
There are 13 root servers around the globe operated by a number of private and public entities that underpin the Internet. These root servers allow each and every URL to resolve to a website, quite reliably for the most part.
The root servers are under the jurisdiction of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN selects Registrars to manage top level domains (TLDs) like dot-COM (e.g., Verisign manages the dot-COM), dot-INFO, dot-BIZ, dot-ORG, dot-NAME and so forth and they also work with national bodies that manage country codes, like CIRA (Canadian Internet Registry Authority, which manages the dot-CA) and AuDA (Australia Domain Authority that manages the dot-AU).
Ultimately, control of the Internet rests with the powerful cabinet level post of the DOC (Department of Communications) in the US. ICANN and many European countries (and others) have been trying to wrest control of the Internet away from the DOC for years but the chances of the DOC relinquishing ultimate control over an incredibly valuable resource (i.e., the Internet) is zero, in my view.
And maybe that is just as well since ICANN has never really found a way to make its own governance both transparent and equitable. Governance of international corporations or organizations is very difficult anyway– which law applies in the case of disputes? How do you elect the Board of Directors? What type of accountability does the organization have to its stakeholder groups? Who does ICANN report to– the UN?
US views of UN control and governance are pretty dim and, probably, justifiably so.
Who elects the BOD of ICANN? Maybe, every domain name holder could vote or some of the nominees could be selected by the General Assembly of the UN or the Security Council or what have you. It is an intractable problem; it’s probaly just as difficult to write the constitution of ICANN as, say, the Constitution of the US, and maybe even more difficult because of its international dimension. At least, in the US, the Supreme Court is unquestionably the ultimate legal arbiter.
Well, back to domain names. There are more than 20 million domains taken in the dot-COM TLD. That is a lot of good names you won’t be able to use.
But still, creative people should be able to come up with cool names. The University of Ottawa Entrepreneurs Club has one of the worst URLs I can think of. Try to remember this:
http://www.tecde.ca/tecde_new/tecde.php?content=main
Sheesh.
At a meeting last week with the Club, I suggested they get a shorter, catchier name. It can’t be in english because it is a bilingual University and it can’t be in french either because then it will have to be in both languages in the URL and that defeats the purpose of simplicity.
So I suggested zool.ca. Zool is a play on words based on the supernatural entity ‘Zuul’ in the 1984 film, Ghostbusters. It doesn’t mean anything more and is supposed to conjure up images of unlimited spaces occupied by entrepreneurs and the mystery of successful entrepreneurialism. The more mysterious, the more effective the URL might be for them and it could be a bit of Guerrilla Marketing too for the Club.
Zool.ca would resolve to:
http://www.tecde.ca/tecde_new/tecde.php?content=main
but would be a bit easier to remember, don’t you think?
Dr. Bruce
ps. we also checked that zool.com (which was unavailable) does not resolve to some type of inappropriate site (like, say, a porn site). It doesn’t, so the Club could use Zool.ca if they want to…